'Jamia is minority institution'
New Delhi: Jamia Milia Islamia University was on Monday granted minority institution status by the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, a first for any central university which will allow it to reserve up to 50 per cent seats for Muslims.
"We have no hesitation in holding that Jamia was founded by the Muslims for the benefit of the Muslims and it never lost its identity as a Muslim minority educational institution," chairman the commission Justice M.S.A. Siddiqui said in his judgement.
The varsity will no longer have to give reservation to SC and ST students following the ruling by the Commission, a quasi-judicial body, on the petitions by Jamia Students Union, Jamia Old Boys Association and Jamia Teaches Association filed in 2006 seeking minority status for the varsity.
Jamia became a Central University by an Act of Parliament in 1988.
Siddiqui said Jamia would continue to enjoy the Central University status and the only 'minority central university' in the country given its unique character.
"We find and hold that Jamia Milia and Islamia is a minority educational institution covered under Article 30 (1) of the Constitution of India with section 2(G) of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act," the judgement said.
The institute was founded even before the Constitution was in place, it said.
"No other reservation would be binding on the varsity," said counsel for the petitioners in the case Tarique Siddiqui, citing Article 15 (5) of the Constitution.
Jamia was established for the purpose of keeping Muslim education in Muslim hands, entirely free from external control. Thus the Muslim community brought Jamia into existence in the only manner in which a university could be brought into existence, the judgement said.
After delivering the judgement, Justice Siddiqui told reporters, "We decided the case within the legal parameters".
The Commission in its judgement held that: "on a conjoined reading of section 2(O) and 4 of the Jamia Milia Islamia Act along with the history and facts and events which led to the Establishment of Jamia, we have no hesitation in holding that Jamia was founded by the Muslims for the benefit of the Muslims and it never lost its identity as a Muslim minority educational institutions".
The other members of the commission are Mohinder Singh and Cyriac Thomas.
The intervener in the case was Confederation of Muslims Educational Institutions of India while the responders were the vice chancellor of Jamia, the HRD and Minority Affairs Ministry.
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